Sackboy is no Mario, Sorry Sony
I recently played Big Planet for the Playstation 3. I played a good solid taste of it, and it’s likely that had I played it to the fullest, as a reviewer of games I would have ended up giving it a score above 9.5 on the traditional scale.
Little Big Planet is a Platforming game with a cute, lovable, and quite realistic looking sock doll/hackey sack style humanoid critter, and his friends.
Gameplay consists of creative platforming levels along with tons of collectible add on elements for the user intertwined, as well as a full level creation feature that is really the centerpiece of the entire experience.
The truth about this game is that while it has some flaws, it is remarkably well put together. It is the type of effort that you would expect from Nintendo. While it’s not exactly revolutionary, it is very solid and intriguing. Not to mention that the characters are as cute and lovable as can be. The graphics on the game finally truly hit that “Pixar quality” that we were promised from the PS2 as well.
Sounds like the makings of a game changer for Sony doesn’t it? In fact, Sony fanboys have long hailed Little Big Planet as a “System Seller” for the PS3, the Youtube of console gaming, and crowned lovable little Sackboy as the Successor of Mario. But yeah, it’s just as you’re probably thinking. It’s not happening, nor will it.
When we look at recently released games such as Saints Row 2, PES: 2009, Fallout 3, and on the Microsoft side: Fable 2, Gears of War 2, and all of the above, Little Big Planet is getting creamed.
Don’t get the wrong idea, the title is selling well. But the truth is (all system specs aside) that if this had been a Nintendo title, it would have sold well over a million by now (probably 2), while LBP has yet to break 500k after 3 weeks. Meanwhile, the many games where you shoot each other (hey, nothing wrong with that), or compete directly such as sports continue to take the Lion’s share when it comes to sales.
PS3 gamers (as a whole) prefer titles that are more of the In your face competition type than of the cute, lovable, or even user-creative platforming type. They’d rather put together a team to go take out someone else’s team rather than put together a team to take on someone else’s level.
Mind you, this game will sell well. It may even sell 2 million by the end of the year if it’s very lucky, and eventually sell 5 or 6 million copies over the course of its long lifetime. But rest assured, by next January, the GTA4’s, Resistance 2’s and Guitar Hero’s will overtake it in monthly sales again since they have the base for the long haul. The as of yet unreleased Killzone 2 types, and the games listed earlier will continue to run circles around Little Big Planet. That’s just what the install base entails.
If Sony was truly serious about creating a successor to Mario they’d have done what Nintendo did to make Mario as popular as he’s become. They’d pack LBP in with every new console for free. However, Sony is still in the position of losing money on each console sold, and LBP cost a pretty penny to develop. So that is out of the question (taking into account the huge risk that would be considering the typical type of gamer that buys a PS3).
That Core HD gamer is for the most part appreciative of LBP, but not so much that they will buy it before the other games on the list, and that is a long list when you consider the cost of these games and the many others that will surely cut in line as they appear over the next year.
Little Big Planet is a brilliant game, that I will most surely buy at some point relatively soon now that I have a PS3. But successor to Mario it is not. Having played it, I’d rather wait 6 months or so myself until true quality user content reaches catalog levels. There are just too many games to buy, Sackboy frankly is no Mario; and as much fun as it is, LBP just doesn’t possess the must have magic that exudes from the games of Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto’s legendary plumber.
Link
This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 8:04 am and is filed under Gaming, Site News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
